By Andrew Jack Mariinsky
PETERSBURG, RUSSIA, 10 July 2000 - Bored of the summer
festivals in Avignon, Salzburg or Edinburgh? For more intrepid culture
vultures, Saint Petersburg offers an adventurous alternative. Russias
self-proclaimed Venice of the North hosts its own exotic
White Nights Festival throughout June, with other cultural events that
roll on into July and beyond.
The brainchild of Valery
Gergiev, artisitic director of the Kirov, based in the Mariinsky
Theatre, the White Nights itself provides an intensive dose of music
and opera against the crumbling backdrop of Russias intellectual
capital, at a fraction of the cost of rival events further to the
Alongside War and Peace, one of this years
highlights is Prokofievs opera Semyon Kotko, a four-hour
epic with a difficult history that combines some challenging music
with a heavy dose of Soviet-era ideology.
at the height of Stalins purges in the late 1930s, at the time
of the secretive pre-war pact with Hitler, and based in the turmoil of
Ukraine towards the end of the first world war, Semyon Kotko
is hardly the easiest or jolliest of operas. Superficially, it
portrays the heroic struggle of the Red Army against imperialism and
the legacy of feudalism.
In fact, rhetoric aside, it was
controversial from the start, gaining the disapproval of the regime of
the time, leading to the arrest of the conductor Meyerhold during
final rehearsals. Seen today, there are some scenes in particular
which make it tempting to write off the opera as excessively dated and
Yet at a time when Russia needs to examine its
own history, it would be foolish to consign the rarely-performed opera
to perpetual obscurity. While the Politburo might largely have
approved of the opera once the paranoia of the Stalin-era was over, it
offers sufficient subtlety for very different interpretations today.
While glossing over the initial expropriation of
aristocratic land to linger instead over the unjust reappropriation
from the Bolshevik hero Kotko, there are sufficient laments from the
kulak father of his betrothed, Tkachenko, to hint that the Communist
future had its drawbacks.
Clearly there is no mention of the
brutal period of Bolshevik oppression in the country during the 1920s
and 1930s that followed, leaving huge numbers of Ukrainians to starve
to death in Europes soil-rich theoretical bread basket thanks to
Stalins cynically induced artificial famine. Not to mention the
ruthless purges that followed, of dissidents and simple peasants
But to be fair, there is some justice in the operas
ruthless portrayal of the Cossack and German occupiers, a reminder
that Ukraines complex and bloody history of oppression did not
simply begin or end at the hands of left-wing Russians.
final scene is so over-done in its ideology that today it stands as a
form of self-parody of totalitarianism. Uniformly-clad peasants gaze
optimistically upwards and forwards, clutching Red Books, like a
Socialist Realist picture with a touch of Mao. The unconvincingly
simple conversion of Tkachenko to the Socialist cause, and especially
his apparent easy acceptance by his new-found comrades, adds extra
Meanwhile, the costumes of the Bolshevik hangers-on
with peaked hoods and gowns albeit in red not white give
a nod to the ridiculous robes of the Ku Klux Klan, provide a reminder
that mindless violence and the cult of the mob was not and is not the
monopoly of the Communists.
This production of Kotko
is also accompanied by a wonderful stage set, slanted to make it
easier for audience to see, if rather precarious for the performers.
The bent railtracks, an upturned steam locomotive, and a hole in the
middle variously used as a pond for a romantic late-night dip and a
bomb crater, with the night sky overhead, provide a dramatic backdrop
and a reminder of the chaos and disruption of the period.
own defence of his choice of the piece is that for Prokofiev, the
music was in any case always more important than the politics, and it
is clearly difficult from outside the Soviet system to make judgements
of the difficult choices that working from within required.
Saint Petersburgs latitude does not quite offer 24-hour daylight
for mid-summer, you can still take advantage of afternoon-like
lighting at 11p.m. as you leave the Mariinsky.
raises one problem with the White Knights Festival. It is such a
creature of Gergievs personal energy that there is little else
outside the opera and some classical music concerts. While the tempo
of Mariinsky performances steps up during the festival, it would be
good to think that others could organise accompanying events.
there is little else theatre, music, spontaneous on
let alone off accompaniments which might enrich the
festival much further. There is no real organised or semi-organised
activity which takes advantage of the citys facades and open
spaces, or extends its cultural offerings into the day of night.
is also another drawback, even further beyond Gergievs control.
Steadily crumbling away despite and because of its
architectural and historical richness, Saint Petersburg is lamentably
prepared for international tourism.
Apart from the usual
Russian difficulties of obtaining visas, on arrival, restaurants and
cafés remain generally disappointing. And aside from three
outrageously expensive hotels (a minimum of $300 a night if you are
lucky), and a few miserable Soviet-era concrete lodgings in the
outskirts of the city, it is hard work to find accommodation.
the cost of the tickets, which even with dual pricing for foreign
visitors come in at a fraction of the equivalents at Covent Garden,
the Mariinsky is worth the effort. But the city authorities and
a few other energetic artists -could do far more with relatively
little effort to turn the White Nights into a real international
Jack writes on culture and politics from Moscow for Culturekiosque.com.